Paul Yu

2023/12/27 Wednesday

Notes from my stream of consciousness writing #37

• I want to not have to worry about money by earning lots of money myself. What a universal goal that almost everyone has.
• I intend to earn like $5,000 a month after tax. First, my goal is $100 a month from YouTube AdSense. I have 1300/4000 watch hours so it'll take a while to be monetized but focus on the process not the outcome.
• Let’s not consume artificial sexual content/porn. I keep hearing about how unhealthy it is and how it changes your brain. I just have to preoccupy myself with more important things like reading, stretching, working out, and watching/listening to content that educates me.

2023/12/26 Tuesday

Notes from my stream of consciousness writing #36

• I read in an email that a man's wealth is better measured by his calendar than his bank account. Another reminder that I should use a calendar. I made an ideal calendar like Ali Abdaal said but I did not follow it today.
• We become what we do. (From The Practice by Seth Godin)
• A feeling of comparison always crops up when I meet my high school friends after a long time. Meeting them tomorrow. We live such different lives.
• I should approach girls on my walk to and from the restaurant tomorrow. Remember that every approach is a win. Action-taking-momentum vs. excuse-making-momentum. Easier said than done.
• My YouTube subscriber base is steadily growing.
  • December 6, 2023, I had 600 subs
  • December 16, 2023, I had 626 subs, and now
  • December 26, 2023, I have 657 subs. It just keeps climbing even though my views per video are often in the 20s in the first few days. Posting every day is paying off.

2023/11/29 Wednesday

Notes from my stream of consciousness writing #23

• I changed my blog to the format I want (scroll of my posts from newest to oldest) thanks to Willow Ghost https://ghostdev.xyz/ who did it for free! That was really nice of her. She edited an existing theme called Attila and it works.
• I think I’ll post these stream-of-consciousness writings, or at least their bullet points after writing them by hand first.
• Today I was not efficient with my time again. It all comes down to using a calendar. Time blocking. I really don’t want to use one but it might be good for me.
• On the issue of NoFap, my 13-day streak ended. I won’t pay attention to keeping a streak going anymore. I’m not super addicted to porn, watching it every day for a long time. I watch a few minutes once in a while to jack off then turn it off quickly. When I look at others who write about sex talking about masturbation, like the writer of Sperm Wars, there doesn’t seem to be any benefit for not ejaculating. When I try it for a couple weeks it’s not like it helped me in the way I talk to girls I’m attracted to. It did not help me in any way.

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Christopher Nolan, Andrew Huberman, Lex Fridman, and Matt D’Avella have one thing in common; they all wear the same thing most days. I’m starting to do the same, mostly out of decision fatigue. Before I realized, I started reaching for the same clothes every day, one outfit for home, and one outfit for outside. White T-shirt with black sweatpants at home, black long-sleeved T-shirt and black jeans for outside, maybe with a black cardigan if it’s cold. There’s hardly any thought that goes into choosing my outfit.

Ever since I briefly lived in New York City in 2013, I realized that a lot of New Yorkers wear black and I started to copy that. Black doesn’t get dirty easily, looks sleek and dressier than other colours, is slimming, and is easy to mix and match. Actually, slimming is not a good thing for my skinny frame and it’s probably better if I wear brighter colours to not look so small, but now I like black too much to care about that. In fact, I just bought a couple of black untucked shirts to emulate Andrew Huberman. Perhaps I should be a bit dressier now that I’m in my mid-30s.

I’m going to have to do another Marie Kondo style wardrobe cleanout. I’ve done it a few years ago but it’s about time for another one. You take out all your clothes from everywhere and lay them on the ground. Then you start putting in the clothes you wear every day. If you haven’t worn them in years, it’s probably time to give them away. Thank your clothes and then let them go. *sigh… I’m not looking forward to it.

The most challenging part about YouTubing where I keep getting stuck again and again is choosing the next video idea. Once a video idea is decided upon, writing the script, shooting, and editing all flow in a straightforward fashion.

The kicker is that my ideas page is not blank. I have written quite a long list of video ideas. The problem is that I don’t feel like making any of those videos right now. There have been times when one of my old ideas became my next video, but it hasn’t happened often. Something that felt like a good idea at the time often fizzles out and I lose interest.

There have been a couple of tips that helped:

1. Document, don’t create.
2. Share what you love.

This post is born from the first advice. Document your journey instead of “creating”. There’s a limit to how much that helps because if you’re constantly stuck with ideas then there’s not much to document. Sharing what you love is a good tip because as you consume content you can share it right back.

In terms of creativity, I’ve heard two conflicting pieces of advice:

• Consume a lot of content to find out what to talk about next
• Consume less content and focus more on introspection

Both points seem to be valid. Consuming content can give you that next idea while consuming no content can allow things in your mind to bubble up. I guess it’s about finding a healthy balance of content consumption.

If I ever crack the code of never being stuck with choosing the next video idea, I’ll share it in a future post. For now, it seems like this is going to be a continual struggle for the time being.

"Programming is not for everyone. You either have it or you don't, and YOU should not do it because you don't like it," my friend Jake told me. He's doing a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He got into programming in the 3rd grade when he wanted to hack things. He tried quitting programming and doing something else but he always ended up coming back to it. I guess he "has it," in his words.

A year ago, I started learning web development online on free code camp to try and make a career out of it. My friend Conor, who used to be a library technician, started learning web development online for free using the Odin Project, and a year later he got hired at a startup. I thought, "If he can do it, so can I."

Fast forward a year to today. I've finished the HTML and CSS portion on free code camp but haven't even gotten to the projects section of JavaScript. I was struggling with the intermediate algorithm scripting exercises and dreading the projects, which were described as "similar (to the exercises) just much more difficult."

Why had I made such little progress in a year? You could say lack of discipline. Each time I had to force myself to sit down and code. I only did it a little bit at a time.

Recently I reconnected with an old elementary school friend from Korea. When she found out I'm learning programming, she told me to find something less stressful that I enjoy more. She said she's seen friends who got a job in that field after forcing themselves through school, but it wasn't a good fit, so they ended up quitting and doing something else. This got me questioning myself.

I reached out to a web developer friend who recently got fired during a massive layoff. She said, "There are many awesome roles in the IT field, but it is a highly competitive market. Everyone can join with low barriers of entry. You have to learn things after work since the framework changes every 2-3 years. Working in IT means you have to work over 40 hours (people will tell you that you can have work life balance but it is not true; they spend weekends studying) and you gotta do it for 30 years. It is especially stressful debugging when you can't find help from colleagues or stack overflow. Layoffs can come every few years."

This reminded me of Jim Carrey's dad, who went into accounting to pay the bills but got fired one day.

“I learned many great lessons from my father–not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” - Jim Carrey

So what else could I do if I'm going to give up programming? The only thing that comes to mind is video editing. I only know the barebones as I am self-taught and just use the bare minimum to make videos myself.

I recently got paid to do video editing for a friend, and it was doable. Not frustrating or stressful, like I find programming. I could learn to be a better video editor and get a job doing that.

So I've made up my mind. Ditch programming and get into video editing. I wish I would have made this decision a year sooner, but better now than later.